


Bystander

by psocoptera



Category: Popslash
Genre: Alternate Universe, Early Work, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-01-16
Updated: 2003-01-16
Packaged: 2018-02-10 11:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2022663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/pseuds/psocoptera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris is afraid, and he's afraid Lance isn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bystander

Everyone is afraid of something. Chris is afraid of Things.

When you sleep in your car, and wake up during the night, you sometimes see things: strange lights in the sky, eyes that don't come in pairs, that drunk guy from over on State who froze to death a couple nights ago shambling down the street. Once a whole bunch of them lurching to some unknown gathering. Chris doesn't want to know, wishes he had grown up in a house like normal people and had never looked through streaky windows at women in torn fishnets with long hairless tails like rats. But sometimes there are other things: slim people with flashing swords and smiles that glow white even under yellow sodium lights, crazy-haired old men carrying boxes with dials, old women tossing handfuls of herbs. He remembers finding something on the windshield one morning, almost missed in all the dirt except that it smells like Italian food and he hasn't eaten, a crumble of herbs like someone tapped out a green cigarette. He had wondered who had been there, and what hadn't. 

He knows they're at concerts, although he can never quite see them. But there are eddies in the crowds sometimes of the kind of person walking through who everyone wants to step back from, and sometimes one of the techs gets caught chalking things along the rim of the stage. JC doesn't care, and Joey knows enough to leave such things alone, and he's managed to keep it from Justin so far like he always did from his sisters. Lance, though, Lance he has also kept it from, because Lance will start looking for eddies in the crowds, and Lance's eyes look green even under yellow sodium lights, and he's never learned to just stay in your car. 


End file.
